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Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota said Thursday evening weak inflation and "too high" levels of unemployment argue in favor of the central bank doing more to help the economy.

If the settlements materialize, they could yield, according to an analysis, $15 billion in relief for consumers - a mixture of cash payments and other assistance, like reductions in the size of homeowners' loan payments. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Wall Street's biggest banks told the New York Fed ahead of a central-bank meeting last month that they didn't expect to see a cutback in Fed bond buying in December, even as it turned out that policy action was exactly what policy makers delivered.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday offered an optimistic view on the U.S. economy's prospects to Democratic senators, but warned that "tough decisions" were ahead on dealing with long-term budget deficits and healthcare costs, according to lawmakers present.

Barbara S. Mishkin Yes, if you were watching Jon Stewart&#8217;s Daily Show last night on Comedy Central, you would have seen that one of his guests was CFPB Director Richard Cordray. (A video of Director Cordray&#8217;s appearance can be viewed here.) Director Cordray&#8217;s Daily Show appearance last night followed his appearance yesterday morning on Morning Joe, an MSNBC... More &#62;

Portland Region November Home Sales Portland-area November home sales rose slightly year-over-year to the highest level for that month since 2009 thanks to a jump in new-home transactions that compensated for a drop in resales. The median price paid for a home held at $260,000 for the third consecutive month but rose 13 percent compared with November 2012, a real estate information service reported. A total of 2,615 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow during November in the five-county Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton metro area. Sales fell 16.8 percent from the prior month and rose 2.8 percent from a year earlier, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records. On average, sales have fallen 10.8 percent between October and November since 1994, when DataQuick's complete Portland-area statistics begin. While November sales were up only slightly from a year earlier, sales for all of 2013 are on track for a larger increase. A total of 33,805 homes sold in the five-county Portland region between January and November 2013, up 16.1 percent from the same 11-month period in 2012. Sales of newly built homes rose 22.9 percent year-over-year during the January-through-November period, while condo resales rose 14.8 percent and resale house sales increased 15.3 percent. Although November's sales tally was the highest for that month in four years, it was 16.2 percent short of the average sales total for all months of November since 1994. Sales of existing (not new) single-family detached houses and condos combined were 12.6 percent below the historical November average, while new-home sales were 32.4 percent below average. However, sales of newly built homes have been trending higher, rising 28.3 percent in November compared with a year earlier. November condo resales fell 2.3 percent year-over-year, while single-family house sales dipped 0.4 percent. The number of homes that sold for less than $100...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)-- The Federal Reserve's decision to reduce its monthly bond purchases to $75 billion from $85 billion in December was a "modest" but essential step, said Esther George, president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve, on Thursday. George was a voting member of the Fed's rate-policy committee last year and does not have a vote in 2014. She pressed all of last year for the Fed to start to taper. In a speech to the Wisconsin Bankers Association in Madison, Wis. George did not lay out a preferred time-table for tapering but made clear she is ready for more reductions. "I remain concerned about the potential costs and consequences of these untested policies," she said. In her remarks, George was upbeat about the economic outlook, forecasting growth this year in the range of 2.5% to 3% in 2014. She said she was unconcerned about recent low inflation readings, saying it was the result of special factors. George used a large portion of her prepared remarks to lay out why the community bankers in Wisconsin should back tougher measures to downsize too-big-to-fail banks.

Treasuries Rise After 30-Year Bond Auction Bids Exceed Average Bloomberg Treasuries rose after the U.S. auction of $13 billion of 30-year bonds attracted higher-than-average bids. The bonds drew a yield of 3.899 percent, compared with the median estimate of 3.914 percent in in a Bloomberg News survey of 10 of the Federal&nbsp; ... and more&nbsp;&raquo;

My, how they have been busy. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has an entire wagonload of regulations going into effect in January. If you are a mortgage lender, this has been hard to miss. Arising from the mandates of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (or Dodd-Frank) the CFPB issued a wide-ranging set of regulations at the beginning of 2013 covering everything from mortgage origination Continue reading

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. banks and housing groups are bracing for paperwork headaches and delays as major post-crisis mortgage reforms take effect later this week, but experts say prior warnings of a blow to the housing recovery will not be proven right.

Supreme Court for Putnam County Dismisses Quiet Title Action Against MERS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Janis Smith Phone: 703-738-0230 Email: janiss@mersinc.org Reston, Virginia, January X, 2014 - MERSCORP Holdings, Inc. today announced the Supreme Court for Putnam County in New York State granted&nbsp; summary judgment in favor of MERS, ruling that MERS properly assigned the mortgage to the lender.&nbsp; In Vaughn v. HSBC Mortgage Corp. ., et al, the borrowers alleged in part that MERS did not possess the authority to assign the subject mortgage to the lender because MERS never held an interest in the underlying note secured by the MERS mortgage. The borrowers' claim relied on the appellate court's decision in Bank of New York v. Silverberg which held that MERS lacked the authority to assign the power to foreclose to the lender through the MERS mortgage assignment absent evidence that MERS also transferred the promissory note to the lender.&nbsp; In his opinion, Judge Lewis J. Lubell found borrowers' reliance on Silverberg to be "misplaced" because MERS was authorized to assign the mortgage to the lender regardless of MERS' lack of interest in the borrowers' note.&nbsp; As the court noted MERS' authority to assign the mortgage "is provided in the HSBC [MERS] Mortgage itself."&nbsp; The court also rejected the borrowers' claim that the MERS mortgage was unenforceable because the mortgage was held by MERS while the note was held by the lender. "Contrary to plaintiffs' position as is articulated in their first cause of action, the Mortgage is not a nullity due to the 'decoupling' of the Mortgage from the Note." (See, Amherst Factors Inc. v. Kochenburger and Shui Fong Loo v. HSBC Mortg. Corp.) "In his opinion, Judge Lubell again confirms that MERS has legal authority to assign a mortgage and act on behalf of the lender," said MERSCORP Holdings Vice President for Corporate Communications...

RealtyTrac® on January 9th today released its U.S. Home Equity &#38; Underwater Report for December 2013, which shows that 9.3 million U.S. residential properties were deeply underwater - worth at least 25 percent less than the combined loans secured by the property - representing 19 percent of all properties with a mortgage in December. That was down [&#8230;]

(Reuters) - Janet Yellen, set to take over as head of the Federal Reserve next month, is "hopeful" that U.S. economic growth will accelerate in 2014 to reach 3 percent or more and persistently low inflation will move up toward the central bank's target, according to a Time magazine interview released Thursday.

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